BlackBerry Messenger to hit Android and iOS on June 27

When BlackBeery announced that its Messenger service (BBM) was coming to iOS and Android many people, including me, got very excited, but unfortunately, the company wasn’t ready to announce a release date back then.

Now, almost a month after the Blackberry Live 2013 conference, the company has announced that its BBM service will hit Android and iOS as a standalone app on June 27. Here’s the tweet from BlackBerry Worldwide that shows the app running on an iPhone.

Initially, the BlackBerry Messenger or BBM, as it’s more commonly known, will only support BBM chats, multi-person chats, voice note sharing, and BlackBerry Groups, where BBM users are able to set up groups to share calendar, photos, files, etc.

The company however, intends to make the BBM for Android and iOS as fully featured as it is on BlackBerry 10, only this will happen gradually. BlackBerry has plans to expand the functionality of the app with some of the new BBM features such as Voice and video calls, Screenshare, and the just announced Channels. These will come as subsequent updates.